Haul: CVS

Well hello people ^_^
Today I passed by CVS and Walgreens to pick up a couple of things that I have been meaning to get for a while now.


First, this is what I got from CVS:

First, this is one of the Sally Hansen HD nail colors in the color Laser. It is a sparkly blue with purple micro shimmer.

 

Can you see the really pretty purple shimmer? 

The price on these are..I have no idea. It will vary from store to store, but I got lucky. The bottle didn't have a tag, and the cashier rung it up for $0.99! I believe it was around $5-$6. Yay for me!

Next up is Essie's Sexy Divide. This was from an old collection, but they had it at CVS. I have noticed that drugstores carry Essie now, it is a little odd. They even had OPI.  This was $8, as all Essie nail polishes are.

Sexy Divide is a dark purple with very subtle purple and blue shimmer. It was hard to capture the shimmer on my camera, but its there.

Then we have Rimmel's 60 Seconds polish. Not many strores carry this anymore, but this one looked so pretty. I could not resist myself. This in the color 615 "Night Before." It is a dark purple with a gold shimmery duochrome like appearance. I haven't tried these out, by the way. This was $2.99 I believe.

Can you see the gold undertone? It almost looks like the night sky~

The last polish I purchased is Sinful Color's Pearl Harbor. It was $1.99 and an amazing purchase, I think.

You will see why.

Look at the iridescent shimmer! It is gorgeous!

 It has blue, turquoise, and opal pink shimmers. It will look different depending on what color you top it over. Lighter polishes will accentuate the opal glitters, while a darker polish will accentuate the blue glitters.

 I swatched them on an index card, but its hard to see the colors.

 Click on the pictures to view them larger.

 These did not capture the pretty shimmers of the two purple polishes...

And lastly, I finally got my hands on the Milani HD concealer. This is supposed to be a dupe for the YSL touche eclat. I got mine in the shade 01. This was $4.99. 

I will do a review on the concealer and on the nail polishes once I get to use them.

If you guys have been eyeing  anything from here, I hope this helped to give you an idea of what they look like. 

Honestly, the thing I liked the most and surprised me the most was the Sinful Colors polish in Pearl Harbor. It was really cheap but it is really amazing. You guys should check it out. Most drugstores carry the Sinful Colors line. I've seen it at Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid. 

I will do a separate post on what I got at Walgreens, because if I put them together, this post will be too picture heavy. Anyways, thanks for reading. :)

Happy hauling~

~Yami <3

Book List February 2011

 Here's something different. 

This is a list of 100 of the most popular books today. I love reading, so I looked up this list and I wanted to see how many of them I have already read. I am disappointed that I have not read that many :'( If I counted right I have read 28 /100. Of course, I have read tons of books that are not on this list, but it still made me depressed. 

So I decided to undergo a critical  mission: to read as many of these books as I can. I will begin this during my spring break, which is like in less than three weeks. My university is on the quarter system so classes only last 10 weeks D:

SO wish me good luck. You should check the list too~

Oh just a random nerdy fact:

~I love the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series. This winter, I re-read all the Harry Potter books in preparation for the last movie that comes out this summer. Ah, my nerdiness knows no bounds. ;)

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen x
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte x
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee x
6 The Bible x
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte x
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell x
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott x
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy x
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller x
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (partial only)
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier x
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks x
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger x
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger x
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck x
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame x
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis X
34 Emma – Jane Austen x
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen x
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini x
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown x
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery x
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy x
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood x
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding x
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert x
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen x
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold x
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett x
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson x
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath x
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome x
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens x
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton x
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams x
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute x
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo x

Review: Tokidoki Blush Brush

Good Morning..err..or whatever time of the day it is when I post this. ;)
This is part two review of Tokidoki brushes. This particular brush came out not too long ago, maybe like a month ago or so? Anyways, Tokidoki has released a number of new products recently and I bought a couple of them, one of them being this brush. I bought it when it barely came out, and it was not available in stores yet so I had to buy it online. This means that I had no idea how the brush felt or really what the quality of the brush was. I just went for it and bought it. The brush is $25 and you can purchase it at any Sephora store that sells Tokidoki or at
http://sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P279612&shouldPaginate=true&categoryId=5971

This is an angled brush that can be used for blush, bronzer, contouring, powder, or whatever you want to use it for. Personally, I only use it for blush, I think it is too big for contouring and I have a different brush for powder.

My overall thoughts on this brush:

PROS:
~Can you say "freaking cute?!" (But I guess this is merely my own opinion...)
~Like the other Tokidoki brushes, very good quality
~Fairly affordable at $25 (Similar to MAC's 168 which is $32)
~The tips of the bristles are pink, so if you use it for blush you wont really be able to tell that you used it
~Reeeeally soft, not scratchy at all!
~Easy to build the amount of brush you apply
~You can use the brush itself to blend out the blush you applied
~Dense bristles
~The brush has weight to it, which I prefer over a lighter brush since it works better for really working in a product onto your cheeks. 

CONS:
~If you are applying a really light colored blush, you might have to pick up a lot of product since the brush has a tendency to pick up less product that other blush brushes would. You might also have to apply it more than once to get a better color payoff.
~Would not recommend for creme or gel products (So creme blushes are a no go)
~The bristles are to bulky to be used for contouring (But perfect size for blush or bronzer, maybe even powder if you want)

It comes in a plastic box with really cute pictures.

 The top of the brush with the head of the character.

 The tips of the bristles are dyed pink.

Pretty dense bristles, perfect for blush application.

Hope this review helped any of you who perhaps want to purchase this brush. As with their eye brushes, I really recommend them.




~Yami <3

Follow up: Lioele, NARS, Artistry swatches

So a couple days ago I posted a review for Lioele's Triple the Solution BB cream. I wanted to post some swatches are quickly tell you the difference between them.
Before that, though, I want to just state that these are swatches for a BB cream, a foundation, and a tinted moisturizer, The reason I did this is because I have always heard that BB creams were like tinted moisturizers that had the coverage of a foundation. We will see how that claim holds up.

From Left to Right: Artistry (in Tint 1), Lioele (Triple the Solution), NARS (in Gobi)

Size and Price comparison:
Artistry Tinted Moisturizer: $22.50 retail, or $14.63 for IBO's (30mL or 1 Fl. oz.)

Lioele BB cream: $29.00 (50mL or1.69 Fl. oz)
prettyandcute.com/Lioele-Triple-Beyond-Solution-BBcream-SPF30-pa-p134.html

NARS Sheer Glow: $42 (plus $6 if you want the pump) (30mL or 1 Fl. oz)

 Lioele: Comes in a tube with a really good pump. I think the tube is cute, its not too bland but it doesn't look too childish either.

 You can see the size of the tube. Its a bigger than I thought it would be.

 The pump works really well. Just make sure to clean off the pump before putting the cap back on. If you don't you will get product smudged on the inside of the cap.

 Artistry: The tube is significantly smaller than the Lioele tube. This tube comes in a sleek black color. It looks very sophisticated. Its a squeeze tube, but you can easily control how much product you squeeze out.

 NARS: I really like how the bottle looks. Its very streamlined and sophisticated. The bottle is glass, so be careful not to drop it ;)

 I have the pump, but you have to buy it separately on the NARS website.

 Okay, here we have a pump of each on the back of my hand. FYI, I am an NC20/25

From Left to Right: Lioele, Artistry, NARS

 Here I spread out each one equally just a little.

 Blended out just a little more.

 Same as above, just at a different angle.

 Just keep blending, just keep blending...(Finding Nemo reference..fail)

Blended out more, but not completely so you can still see the distinct products.

Thoughts:

~Lioele BB cream has the thickest consistency, next is NARS, and the lightest is obviously Artistry. 

~Lioele BB cream definitely does not have a tinted moisturizer consistency, but it does feel like one on the skin. 

~Lioele BB cream retains the most opacity even when being blended out.

~On my skin tone, NARS has a more yellow undertone, Artistry is pretty neutral, and Lioele has a slight beige undertone.
~Although Lioele BB creme is thick, when you apply it on the skin correctly, it wont look thick and cakey. On the contrary, it will look dewy, radiant and simply amazing ;)


I hope this helped you guys see the consistency of these products, especially if you have wanted to try out this BB creme. 

Happy foundation hunting!

~Yami <3

Review: Tokidoki Eye Brushes

Hello Everyone, today I am going to be reviewing some amazing, and of course uber cute, brushes!
I am a huge fan of many Japanese products, and Tokidoki is of course a line that is inspired by Japan. "Tokidoki" (時々) means "sometimes" in Japanese, its weird  for a brand name but its fun to say! Ever since my first Tokidoki purchase, which was actually two of their colored mascaras, I have been so in love with this brand. When I purchased the mascaras from their cosmetic line at Sephora, I honestly thought they were going to be cheap mascaras. I bought them because I thought they were really cute, but had low expectations of the product. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the product, though.They are really pigmented and high quality mascaras. So although the packaging is cute and a little reminiscent of young girl's makeup, the product itself is department store quality.

When Tokidoki released an eye brush set, I was floored. The brushes were so freaking, unbelievably cute. At the time, I already owned some MAC eye brushes, but I gave in and purchased the Tokidoki set while visiting the Sephora at Market Street in San Francisco. At $35 for the three most basic eye brushes, its actually a really good deal. The look of the brushes is just an added bonus ^_^
The set includes:
~Mozzarella eyeshadow brush  (medium sized shader brush), Blue
~Adios Amigos crease brush (blending brush), Green
~Donutella Angled eyeliner brush, Pink

 

They come in a plastic three sided, pyramid shaped box, which you could use to store the brushes in, if you wanted to.

 

I just kept the box because its really adorable, and you could put other things inside.

 

After using these brushes for about half a year, I must say I really like them. They are good quality, super soft, and, I must emphasize this, extremely adorable!

Here are my thoughts on these:

PROS:
~Fairly affordable (Its roughly $11.66 for each brush compared to MAC's $30 for one brush)
~Really soft bristles
~Each brush has a distinct design and character and different color dye on the tips of the brushes
~Easy to clean
~White bristles ( I prefer white over black since you can see how much product you are using)



CONS:
~My MAC 217 and 239 work slightly better, in my opinion.
~Depending on your preference, these might be hard to use, since they are bigger that most eye brushes
~Can be hard to store (The tops have the face of the character)
~Bristles might get stained since they are white.

 Here are the brushes. Sorry that they are dirty, I used them this morning and didn't have time to clean them. You won't be able to see that the tips are supposed to be colored the same color as the metal part before the bristles.

Here you can  see all the pictures on the handle of the brushes.

Here is a close up on the tops of the brushes. As you can see, they have the face of one of the Tokidoki characters and the handles also have tons of cute drawings related to the character on the top of the brush.

 Here are bristles of the brush.

 Mozzarella.

 Its a cute character in a cow costume who usually is holding a gun, I think its a Tommy guns usually conected with the Italian mobsters. It makes sense since its name is Mozzarella (Reference to Italy as well as a dairy product :D LOL)

 Adios. A skull, grim reaper looking character. His name is Spanish for "Good bye."

 Donutella. One of my favorite Tokidoki characters. She has donuts for ears.

 The donuts even have sprinkles on them.

 Im not sure if you can tell, but the blending brush (the middle one) is longer than most blending brushes I have seen. It makes it useful for light blending, or for applying a light wash of color all over the lid or on the crease. I have also used this to blend out concealers. It worked alright for that.

The liner brush is thin, so it works really good for applying eyeshadow on the upper or lower lash line. Its thin enough that you can get a precise line, and you can control how thick or thin you make the line.


Overall, I think these brushes are great. They will be good for people who are beginners in makeup, someone who doesn't own many brushes, someone who does not want to spend too much money on brushes, or of course huge Tokidoki fans. I still think MAC brushes are better, but since MAC brushes can be really pricey, these are a more cost affective and cuter alternative.

You can see the difference in size of the eye brushes compared to the Blush Brush.


~Yami<3